Pomodoro Writing Technique- Sounds Strange But It Works

I’ve started writing my short story and hopefully will finish it in the next week. My job and Christmas are making things a little hard to get going on this. Ugh, sounds like an excuse.

Anyhow I wanted to tell you a little about the writing method I use. It’s called Pomodoro and the technique was developed in the late 1980s.

It really works for me and it simplifies the whole writing process so much. I used to struggle opening up Word and starting to write. I know I’m not alone in that struggle.

Pomodoro has made all the difference as far as my motivation. It’s easy and a very fast way to write. I’m following Mike Nielsen’s ebook, “Book-A-Day Kindle Short Reads” and he also is a Pomodoro believer. He gives some information on the Pomodoro technique in the ebook.

With the Pomodoro technique, you use a timer to break down your work into 25 minute intervals. After each interval, you take a 5 minute break.

You don’t need much to do it. I use the “tomighty timer” which you can download for free. This timer has two settings: 25 minutes and 5 minutes. It’s made for Pomodoro. You can write using Word, notepad, Scrivener or whatever you like or feel comfortable using.

It’s important that you shut down Facebook, your email, or whatever you’ve got running on your computer that is a distraction or diversion. You’re going to dedicate a bit of time to writing and keep thinking how it’s going to be a good thing.

Before we begin, let’s think of what you can do with this little method. Following the Mike Nielsen ebook, we have a template with instructions for making a quick outline for your 9 story chapters.

As I said in my last post, you only need to spend around 25 minutes to write this outline because his template makes it so easy. So your first 25 minutes is spent putting the outline together. You only need to do this once for your book and it’s done.

Then your goal is to write around 750 words for each chapter. With Pomodoro, you can easily write 750 words in each of your 25 minute blocks. I’m not a fast writer and I can do it. Many writers I know can write much more than that.

Ok, so you’re really driven to publish a lot of books and you decide that you’re going to write 4 chapters a day. That’s 100 minutes of writing plus your breaks. So basically you spend 2 hours to write almost half your book.

At that rate, you should be done in 3 days, and that’s only writing 2 hours a day. If we want something bad enough (have extra money, have lots of extra money, work a job part time, quit job), we’ll do it. I’m saying we, because personally, I want to quit my job. It’s not that I hate it, but to tell you the truth, I’d rather do other things with my time.

Okay, let’s get into how I do Pomodoro. First I set the timer for 5 minutes and I start typing. What am I typing? Anything that comes into my head. This is a warmup that you do at the beginning of your session. You can write about silly things or life’s stresses, or the good looking girl/guy down the street. Whatever you feel like writing. Don’t stop for 5 minutes. You only do this once at the start of your session.

This step really puts you into a writing state of mind. It primes the pump or gets the juices flowing.

Now I look at the chapter outline for chapter 1 or whatever chapter I’m going to write. I might think about it a little but no longer than 4 or 5 minutes.

I start writing after setting the timer for 25 minutes. I write non-stop for 25 minutes with the goal of writing a minimum of 750 words. I don’t worry about spelling, grammar or the story being perfect. Forget editing. Your goal is to write 750 words. Do not worry about the story sounding like crap. It’s going to be ok.

When the timer goes off, finish your sentence and stop writing. You might write a quick note about what you need to do to finish the chapter or tie things up when you start writing again. Meantime, take a 5 minute break. Click “short break” on the timer.

Leave the computer. Get something to drink or a quick snack or use the bathroom. You might want to step outside for a breath of air.

When the timer ends your 5 minute break, be ready to start typing again. Now you look at your outline for chapter 2 for a few minutes and then start the timer for 25 minutes again.

You repeat the process as many times as you like. You can quit after 1 or 2 25 minute blocks or keep going until you start feeling a little spaced out. If that happens, quit for the day.

That’s it. It’s very repeatable and at the end of the day, you’ve got a chunk of your story done. Yes, you’re going to edit it before publishing. You can do this at the end of your Pomodoro writing session or wait until the story is done. That’s up to you.

This and the template are the foundation of the “Book-A-Day Kindle Short Reads” program. Templates are included for writing romance and for any other type of fiction short reads.

Remember the goal is a book or two a week and if you can do nine 25 minute blocks in a week, voila!